> Now, I'm not a networking expert so I don't know if inculpate and exculpate are commonly used in the field.
They're legal terms, actually. If evidence exculpated someone, it would tend to show that they weren't guilty (or at least less likely to be guilty). Inculpate is its antonym (opposite).
Granted, I don't expect your average man on the street to know those words, but if you're someone who is supposed to be an expert witness and is testifying on something like this, it really undermines them. Remember, this isn't just some schmoe, he's supposed to be an expert.
Anyhow, it may have been a bit harsh, but if I had to guess, it's just something to help the judge understand that this guy is no expert, and perhaps to convince that judge to exclude this guy's testimony. Ray said that they've used this guy a lot, but no one has challenged him until now, and I'd say there are plenty of things to challenge. And if you want to show him to be sub-par as an expert, what better way than something lawyers and judges will understand very well, rather than arcane technical details?
Now, I won't deny that Ray is more aggressive at times than I would be, but if the commercials are any indication, people want an aggressive lawyer who won't take crap from the opposition:]
I can't find any way to get a copy from there. And the only thing I can find shows course tuition in the range of $2,000:/
I don't suppose you can subpoena a copy somehow (that's, umm, a subpoena deuces tecum? assuming I remember the fancy legal term). That, or talk with the Iowa State University's library. They might keep an archival copy of such things, and you just might be able to get it via inter-library loan with some local library or something...
Here's their web page, it lists a phone number of (515) 294-3642. I'd ask for the reference desk. If they're anything like the libraries here, they'd be very helpful. No promises, though. If this doesn't work, I don't know what else to try. Good luck!:]
BSE ("mad cow" disease) is thought to be caused by prions, not bacteria, last I knew. In other words, this antibiotic has nothing to do with it.
That said, this is positively horrible that we're wasting a potent, last-line-of-defense antibiotic on cows. Why can't they use the antibiotics to which there's already a lot of resistance, anyhow, instead of wasting this one? I mean, you can just shoot a sick cow and dispose of it. I sincerely hope they're not suggesting we do that with sick people.
When that many doctor's organizations are opposing this, it makes you wonder how the hell they can be expected to approve it. Well, okay, I admit to not wondering that much. In the end, I have to think that it all has everything to do with little slips of paper with green ink on them and not very much to do with medicine.
There, at least, I can imagine that he's trying to clarify whether "filter" means "block" in this case. From the testimony (if, indeed, any of it can be considered reliable), it would seem that their software merely detects (or attempts to detect) copyrighted songs by sniffing the network, rather than blocking their transmission.
That said, the whole exchange is pretty ridiculous. I'm wondering--will MediaSentry (and whoever else) even be required to put forth a qualified expert on any of these matters? I hope Ray finds the right people the subpoena or uses that special type of subpoena that forces the other party to designate one or more people to answer a question to prevent exactly this sort of game where someone ought to know what's going on, but no one does.
Anyhow, I have no idea what the RIAA is going to do in court when their own witness said they couldn't find any copyrighted material, and yet they refuse to be open to the idea that it was someone else who was the actual infringer.
I thought you said that judges had bought BS like this before, though?:( Or was that only because it wasn't being challenged?
Anyhow, I'm just hoping that doesn't happen in your case. It looks like you have more than enough information to discredit the man, I just hope that the Court takes note of that.
One thing I would advise, though (and it's possible you've already done this and I just didn't read that part) is to have an alternate theory or two ready. The defendant will testify that the computers were, in fact, hooked up this way (say, through open wireless), anyone could've (and probably did) download stuff through it / here are traces of a trojan/rootkit/whatever on the HD that the "expert" failed to notice (run Spybot S&D or something on the drive & record the log file). Or perhaps even other things like "defendant wasn't in the house at the time the alleged infringement was to have taken place, we have witnesses who will say..."
I say this mostly because I can see ignorant juries getting snowed by an "expert" who uses lots of technobabble. Too many people seem to think, thanks to Hollywood ironically enough, that you can create magical internet tracer programs that are totally foolproof. Hell, there are still tons of people who think that email is totally secure, and I doubt they'd be convinced otherwise unless you sent them mail from themselves, Santa Clause, or whoever else. Fact is, some lone geek in the basement could cause a lot of trouble for the internet if that were their goal.
I wonder, then... what's the best thing to do with his testimony? To have the Court throw it out right away, or to let them present it just so you can rip his theories to shreds in front of the jury? I'm almost tempted to say that the latter would be preferable, but I learned about law from Perry Mason and the internet rather than law school, so...:] Still, if you can totally discredit someone on their side in front of the jury, I have to feel like that would sway people's opinions. Especially if you can hold up their transcript and point out that they found NO indication that they had any copyright-infringing files. The lawyer having to contradict his own expert in open court to get around that, well... ouch.
Here's to hoping the RIAA pays some attorney's fees in this case, too:)
I'm not an English major either. I have a BS in mathematics, in fact. But even I know what inculpated and exculpated mean.
That said, it probably would've been faster to explain it to him. But it's not like he was playing the game that TV crew did for Leno or someone when they went around asking people what they thought about when they masticated (mastication == chewing, BTW).
> When faced with the RIAA monopoly, many people propose a boycott that is unrealistic: People won't stop buying CDs, downloading from iTunes, or the like.
No, but you can pirate, instead:] I find that more likely than a boycott, too...
15 Q. Does a MAC address tell you if a 16 device is wired or wireless? 17 A. If you can see the MAC address of the 18 transmitting device you could see whether that 19 device was wired or wireless.
This guy may know a bit of programming, but this kind of stuff makes it pretty clear to me that he has no idea how people can and do manipulate information. It's pretty clear to me that he's done little more than investigate only those things which might support their case and has completely ignored anything which might cast doubt upon it.
5 Q. With respect to the various data you 6 relied on from MediaSentry or Verizon, do you have 7 any information sitting here today, Dr. Jacobson, to 8 suggest that any of that is not correct? 9 A. No.
I'd say that's the wrong question. The real question is "do you have any information suggesting that it IS correct?"
10 Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether 11 a reasonable expert in your field would rely on 12 information like that? 13 MR. BECKERMAN: Objection. He 14 hasn't shown himself qualified to give an 15 opinion on something like that. 16 Q. You can answer. 17 A. I believe that a person in my field 18 would use the same information.
A reasonable expert!? I doubt that I qualify as an expert, even if I probably know as much about the technology as he does, but there's no way I'd rely on some letter that gave no more information than "that IP belonged to that subscriber at that time"... without any information on how those logs are kept, without any idea idea whether our clocks were right, or anything else. And they basically admit that there's NO way to know which person is on the other end of the computer. You might be able to establish it to some level of reasonable doubt (i.e. if you could corroborate that some person saw them using the computer to do X, or if they were logged into several accounts, all belonging to the same person, or something). However, there's no indication that they have ANY corroborating evidence here, and they have counter-evidence saying that the hard drive seized has no evidence of having been used for copyright infringing activities. That's incredibly damning, IMHO.
In other words, while I don't think I'm an expert, there's no way in hell I could rely on information like this.
That said, I really don't understand this line of questioning:
10 Q. And with respect to the IP -- the 11 public IP address that you talked about a lot today 12 relating to this case, was that within one of the 13 ranges for internal addresses? 14 A. No.
Private IPs like that wouldn't show up in anyone's logs, unless the logs were taken from the same LAN. Instead, whatever router you were connected through would likely have a public IP. So the setup would be something like:
[ PC | Internal 192.168.1.100 ] [ Router | Internal 192.168.1.1 | External 1.2.3.4 ] [ Internet ]
As you can see, the PC has a hidden internal IP, while the router has two IPs. Anyone on the internet will see all connections originating on the PC as coming from the router. A more interesting thing is that ALL connections through said router will come from that same external IP (1.2.3.4 in my example). This is especially true if you have an open wireless connection--to the outside, ALL the people connected through the router look the same.
If you need more information on such addresses, here's a good article on Wikipedia with the basics, and RFC 1918 if you need the technical details. There are also Zeroconf addresses, too (see RFC 3330 and RFC 3927), but those don't appear to be at issue here.
This right here is exactly how to attack his testimony.
From this, you have that this testimony is not based on any sort of science, no one has any clue how reliable it is, and it (should) be totally inadmissible in court.
And if he tries to say "well, but how could we connect to someone who wasn't sharing a file?" or something like that, I'd go down the route of just how you identify who is behind any given IP.
I mean, if you traced the IP I'm on right now, I guarantee that you'd find someone else entirely:]
Yup, it's *really* easy to build an entire shadow-replica of your site on a separate set of servers and "accidentally" make sure it has only the higher prices. It's not like they were trying to bait & switch or anything.
And it would be *totally* unreasonable to maintain only one website instead of two. Just like with database normalization, you want as many redundant copies of the data as possible, so that if you accidentally delete a few, you always have extra copies floating around. I mean, isn't that how everyone does their database replication? You just make extra tables in the database, like TABLE1, TABLE1_BACKUP, TABLE1_OLD, TABLE1_OLD2, and so on...
Where did I learn all this about databases, you ask? There's a great website with example code--it's called the Daily WTF:]
* Print out the online price and bring it in with you.
Ahh, but wouldn't they become open to the reverse-scam then? It's not like it's difficult to save the page to your hard drive and edit the price. With the duplicitous version of their website, they wouldn't even know, provided you brought in a copy of this story about their double-dealing ways...
Of course, I have to believe they'd catch you if you did that, even so.
I don't think the law in the US says they own winter or anything, but we do have a special super-trademark set for them by law (and international treaty?). I suppose they have a point in not wanting people mislead about who paid the IOC money, but such sponsorships certainly don't make me want to buy their crap.
Personally, I'm nothing but sick of the damn games. I honestly don't care, not even one tiny bit, about them.
You're right, the GNAA is somehow affiliated with them. And they do "YHTB" trollsubs (i.e. some other random video, usually when people expect a new episode, but one has not yet been produced). But the rest of the time, their subs are perfectly good *shrug*
So I wouldn't trust them (keep track of the release schedule, don't download the trollsubs, etc.), but I do watch them. Why? They have the sub out the night it's released, of course:] If you like Naruto or Bleach, there's hardly any competition. Well, I guess there's one other group doing Naruto: Shippuuden now, but no one else was that I knew of during the years of filler.
> In the days when I used to watch them, it used to be excruciatingly poor, with cringeworthy translation errors, unreadably wooden dialog, and typos galore; most of the effort usually seemed to be put into dancing animated karaoke lyrics for the opening song, rather than actually translating the script well. I glimpse the odd screen capture on blogs and so forth from time to time, and it doesn't look like things have improved much.
Depends on the series, really. Some of the older ones are just plain crap, yes. Others are quite good. Yeah, they're not always perfect (I've spotted more than a few typos, although this is far more prevalent in manga), but they're pretty good.
I don't know if they can always be blamed for the "wooden" dialog--usually, that's the problem of the anime itself, but the translations I see are at least in literate English and understandable. Some even have helpful cultural notes (the meaning of a raised pinky finger meaning that two people are going out, etc.). But I wouldn't hold them to too high a standard--sometimes they just have to make it understandable without giving you the lowdown on what "yoroshi[ku onegai [ita]shimasu]" (all those brackets indicate removable bits that go with varying politeness levels...) actually means. Yeah, at least one series did that, but the others threw in either some generic greeting or another random phrase appropriate to the situation.
Ironically, the worse (i.e. stupidly literal and actually wrong) translations are probably better if you want to learn Japanese. And I am, naturally, attempting to do so, but in the mean time, I'd much rather just watch the show. Besides, once you learn enough, you can figure out what's meant by all the random name suffixes (-san, -sama, -chan, -tan, -kun, or misc. titles like -taicho and -hime) and there's no good way to work such things into the dialog, anyhow. Unless you *like* oddities like "Kiba boy" or "Believe it!" for some reason...
Besides, if you understand enough Japanese, why not get the raw and ignore subtitles entirely?:]
You'd think that people here would know better than to ask such silly things by now, wouldn't you? Does it really take that much thinking to realize that you can't give someone access to data and not give them access at the same time?
Even if you had some special quantum device to allow people to watch something once, only to have its quantum state collapse (or whatever), you could still record the output. With a camcorder, if it came to that.
"Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet." - Bruce Schneier, cryptography expert
It's true, I don't care about copyright infringement. And I still don't. I am, however, disgusted by their hypocrisy in claiming that copyright infringement is wrong while engaging in it themselves. Just because I don't care about copyright infringement doesn't mean that I like hypocrisy. Nor does this stance make me a hypocrite--like I said, the copyright infringement is NOT what I blame them for.
If you're going to charge someone with hypocrisy, it helps to know what they actually believe. And lest you think that I make that mistake with the MPAA, well, there are plenty of writings on their website I can point you to that detail how evil they claim to think it is. Unless they're doing it, of course, in which case they apparently don't even owe the guy a couple hundred dollars or whatever the price of his software was. As if I could get off like that by claiming, "Oh! I was going to buy the DVD anyhow! I deleted it so you don't have to sue me." and get out of a lawsuit if they'd caught me infringing upon one of their copyrights.
> The amount of DNA that actually causes the differences between humans and mice is remarkably small. While 0.5% of the total DNA is different, approximately 98.5% of that 0.5% is considered inactive.
And yet those few genes prevent me from being a rat. Don't misunderstand--I'm not saying that rats don't make clinical models, just that "tiny" differences really do make a huge difference. After all, we know how many things have been cured in rats that did no good whatsoever for humans.
Also, this was a strange line in the article... isn't this "suppressed" (in what way?) study the one they're touting?
Greenpeace said the Russian trials were also badly flawed. Half of the rats in the trial died, and results were taken from those that survived, in breach of normal scientific practice.
> Seize their assets. That's why a business isn't as powerful as a government.
Oh, that can destroy a government, too. If I live long enough, with the US Federal Deficit as deep as it is and climbing like it is, I might even see it happen.
The teacher claimed that they were sold with illegal copies of Windows on them. The reseller claims that they were sold with no OS.
Of course, I have no way to know who is or isn't lying here--both certainly have motive--although I didn't think Microsoft *allowed* resellers to sell machines with no OS. It's been one of their anti-piracy [and anti-competition] clauses, given that they charged people per PC they shipped, whether it had Windows or not. They said that this would prevent them from getting shortchanged due to "blank" PCs that weren't.
Incidentally, the articles claimed that the prosecutors changed the charge midway through, instead dropping it down to the week the school allegedly used the PCs while knowing that the software on them was illegal. I think that makes it even more clear why a judge would drop the case--after all, in the US, we have a constitutional requirement of a $20 minimum loss before something can become a federal case (mind you, $20 was worth a *lot* more back when that was written--I don't think we ever adjusted it for inflation). There's also some minimum loss before the FBI will get involved, too. It's something on the order of $50,000 unless I misremember. That figure is probably wrong, but it's in the ballpark, and that's still the low end, so they're unlikely to pursue a $100,000 case when there are $10 million ones. And that also explains why the "losses" due to some of the more famous hacking crimes (e.g. Mitnick's exploits) were so inflated--you can't get the FBI's help if you only lost chump change:]
> I would not be surprised if MS has been leaning on the Russian authorities to ensure that the teacher got off - which would explain why the serious charges were dropped by the prosecution. They can not openly say they are in favour of piracy, but the last thing they want is people switching to Linux to save money.
I would be. It's far more easily explained by the fact that Putin and Gorbachev came out against it, while Bill & co. refused to (and also DID support their reseller who, according to said teacher, sold them the pirated software). In other words, there's absolutely no reason to suppose that they secretly support it, and if you want to finger someone as putting pressure on the judge, Putin and Gorbachev both have the clout to do it and they're publicly in favor of letting the guy off.
> King George swore up and down that Iraq had WMDs, did that make it so?
PJ has a lot more credibility than Bush. I don't think anyone who knows anything about both of them could deny that at this point. I can't name any politician, however popular, with as much credibility as PJ, frankly.
> If Stephen J. Vaughan-Nichols announces "aliens are real, I've seen them" tomorrow, is SETI going to shut down on Saturday?
PJ isn't an alien (last I knew). Also, this claim isn't even new. I can't remember the exact articles off the top of my head, but I know they've mentioned meeting long before this. I remember PJ's article about visiting a Linux expo (it's too late for me tonight) and how she described all the people there, the speeches, etc. As well as how she was too shy to introduce herself to much of anyone. Even if you're a really good writer, I don't think you could fake things like that. Her desire for privacy has been constant... and well-founded after the Maureen O'Gara article detailing how SCO was stalking PJ, and how her locks had allegedly been tampered with by someone, etc.
> If Bill Gates said he had met Pamela Jones, would the Slashdot community be so all-accepting?
Hell yes! Given that the information indicating that Microsoft helped convince SCO's investors to give them money, he'd be the last person to vouch for her. As such, it would be something like an "admission against interest" which, in a court of law, is one of the few hearsay exemptions. In other words, a very good reason to think that what was said was reliable.
> In fact, in my opinion, if she does exist but continues to not step forward, then she is even more childish than SCO is.
Don't be stupid. She's already said that she's sick. We already know that she's a very private individual (always has been). And if she's being subpoenaed, she probably can't discuss it with us. That sucks, but it's just the way things work. That may even be SCO's intent.
And what do you mean "does exist"? Clearly *someone* exists--those articles don't write themselves. If you've ever read Groklaw, you'd recognize her voice behind her words. I've made tons of comments, I've posted lots of stories from Groklaw over to here, many when I was too lazy to log in (like this one:P), and I've conversed with her in email, etc. I may not have met her in person, but I damn well recognize her. It's PJ. It has always been PJ. I don't know much else, but I damn well know that she exists and is just one person.
Having played text based games for years, my "alt finding" ability is very high. I've identified many alts by their writing; everyone has a few little idiosyncrasies. PJ has plenty, like her particular sense of humor. Whoever PJ is, it's always been the same PJ and it's always been the same person. There's no doubt whatsoever in my mind, and I have several years worth of articles and comments to back that up.
So let's take the converse--just what makes you think she doesn't exist? Why would you rely on Darl's speculation, the fellow who told us how SCO would definitely win this, how they had mountains of evidence (Judge Kimball already called him on that once), and who is now leading SCO into bankruptcy (see their SEC filings for proof), over the word of PJ, a woman who publicly turned down a great job opportunity because it might undermine her credibility?
Slashdot Mirror
Religion evolved?
:]
Sounds like a sure way to piss off the religious and atheists alike
"Wait, you mean religion might confer some survival advantage? And it's so widespread that..."
"First you're telling me I'm a monkey's uncle. Now you're telling me it was a religious monkey!? Okay, great ape or whatever, but still!?"
> Now, I'm not a networking expert so I don't know if inculpate and exculpate are commonly used in the field.
:]
They're legal terms, actually. If evidence exculpated someone, it would tend to show that they weren't guilty (or at least less likely to be guilty). Inculpate is its antonym (opposite).
Granted, I don't expect your average man on the street to know those words, but if you're someone who is supposed to be an expert witness and is testifying on something like this, it really undermines them. Remember, this isn't just some schmoe, he's supposed to be an expert.
Anyhow, it may have been a bit harsh, but if I had to guess, it's just something to help the judge understand that this guy is no expert, and perhaps to convince that judge to exclude this guy's testimony. Ray said that they've used this guy a lot, but no one has challenged him until now, and I'd say there are plenty of things to challenge. And if you want to show him to be sub-par as an expert, what better way than something lawyers and judges will understand very well, rather than arcane technical details?
Now, I won't deny that Ray is more aggressive at times than I would be, but if the commercials are any indication, people want an aggressive lawyer who won't take crap from the opposition
I can't find any way to get a copy from there. And the only thing I can find shows course tuition in the range of $2,000 :/
:]
I don't suppose you can subpoena a copy somehow (that's, umm, a subpoena deuces tecum? assuming I remember the fancy legal term). That, or talk with the Iowa State University's library. They might keep an archival copy of such things, and you just might be able to get it via inter-library loan with some local library or something...
Here's their web page, it lists a phone number of (515) 294-3642. I'd ask for the reference desk. If they're anything like the libraries here, they'd be very helpful. No promises, though. If this doesn't work, I don't know what else to try. Good luck!
BSE ("mad cow" disease) is thought to be caused by prions, not bacteria, last I knew. In other words, this antibiotic has nothing to do with it.
That said, this is positively horrible that we're wasting a potent, last-line-of-defense antibiotic on cows. Why can't they use the antibiotics to which there's already a lot of resistance, anyhow, instead of wasting this one? I mean, you can just shoot a sick cow and dispose of it. I sincerely hope they're not suggesting we do that with sick people.
When that many doctor's organizations are opposing this, it makes you wonder how the hell they can be expected to approve it. Well, okay, I admit to not wondering that much. In the end, I have to think that it all has everything to do with little slips of paper with green ink on them and not very much to do with medicine.
There, at least, I can imagine that he's trying to clarify whether "filter" means "block" in this case. From the testimony (if, indeed, any of it can be considered reliable), it would seem that their software merely detects (or attempts to detect) copyrighted songs by sniffing the network, rather than blocking their transmission.
That said, the whole exchange is pretty ridiculous. I'm wondering--will MediaSentry (and whoever else) even be required to put forth a qualified expert on any of these matters? I hope Ray finds the right people the subpoena or uses that special type of subpoena that forces the other party to designate one or more people to answer a question to prevent exactly this sort of game where someone ought to know what's going on, but no one does.
Anyhow, I have no idea what the RIAA is going to do in court when their own witness said they couldn't find any copyrighted material, and yet they refuse to be open to the idea that it was someone else who was the actual infringer.
I thought you said that judges had bought BS like this before, though? :( Or was that only because it wasn't being challenged?
:] Still, if you can totally discredit someone on their side in front of the jury, I have to feel like that would sway people's opinions. Especially if you can hold up their transcript and point out that they found NO indication that they had any copyright-infringing files. The lawyer having to contradict his own expert in open court to get around that, well... ouch.
:)
Anyhow, I'm just hoping that doesn't happen in your case. It looks like you have more than enough information to discredit the man, I just hope that the Court takes note of that.
One thing I would advise, though (and it's possible you've already done this and I just didn't read that part) is to have an alternate theory or two ready. The defendant will testify that the computers were, in fact, hooked up this way (say, through open wireless), anyone could've (and probably did) download stuff through it / here are traces of a trojan/rootkit/whatever on the HD that the "expert" failed to notice (run Spybot S&D or something on the drive & record the log file). Or perhaps even other things like "defendant wasn't in the house at the time the alleged infringement was to have taken place, we have witnesses who will say..."
I say this mostly because I can see ignorant juries getting snowed by an "expert" who uses lots of technobabble. Too many people seem to think, thanks to Hollywood ironically enough, that you can create magical internet tracer programs that are totally foolproof. Hell, there are still tons of people who think that email is totally secure, and I doubt they'd be convinced otherwise unless you sent them mail from themselves, Santa Clause, or whoever else. Fact is, some lone geek in the basement could cause a lot of trouble for the internet if that were their goal.
I wonder, then... what's the best thing to do with his testimony? To have the Court throw it out right away, or to let them present it just so you can rip his theories to shreds in front of the jury? I'm almost tempted to say that the latter would be preferable, but I learned about law from Perry Mason and the internet rather than law school, so...
Here's to hoping the RIAA pays some attorney's fees in this case, too
I'm not an English major either. I have a BS in mathematics, in fact. But even I know what inculpated and exculpated mean.
That said, it probably would've been faster to explain it to him. But it's not like he was playing the game that TV crew did for Leno or someone when they went around asking people what they thought about when they masticated (mastication == chewing, BTW).
> When faced with the RIAA monopoly, many people propose a boycott that is unrealistic: People won't stop buying CDs, downloading from iTunes, or the like.
:] I find that more likely than a boycott, too...
No, but you can pirate, instead
This is flat-out wrong. Yes, you CAN find the OUI that might well give you enough information to find out who made the hardware. The problem is that you can change the whole damn MAC address. Conveniently, Wikipedia even has instructions on how to change your MAC on many OSes, although there's an illustrated guide on changing your MAC, elsewhere.
This guy may know a bit of programming, but this kind of stuff makes it pretty clear to me that he has no idea how people can and do manipulate information. It's pretty clear to me that he's done little more than investigate only those things which might support their case and has completely ignored anything which might cast doubt upon it.
I'd say that's the wrong question. The real question is "do you have any information suggesting that it IS correct?"
A reasonable expert!? I doubt that I qualify as an expert, even if I probably know as much about the technology as he does, but there's no way I'd rely on some letter that gave no more information than "that IP belonged to that subscriber at that time"
In other words, while I don't think I'm an expert, there's no way in hell I could rely on information like this.
That said, I really don't understand this line of questioning:
Private IPs like that wouldn't show up in anyone's logs, unless the logs were taken from the same LAN. Instead, whatever router you were connected through would likely have a public IP. So the setup would be something like:
[ PC | Internal 192.168.1.100 ] [ Router | Internal 192.168.1.1 | External 1.2.3.4 ] [ Internet ]
As you can see, the PC has a hidden internal IP, while the router has two IPs. Anyone on the internet will see all connections originating on the PC as coming from the router. A more interesting thing is that ALL connections through said router will come from that same external IP (1.2.3.4 in my example). This is especially true if you have an open wireless connection--to the outside, ALL the people connected through the router look the same.
If you need more information on such addresses, here's a good article on Wikipedia with the basics, and RFC 1918 if you need the technical details. There are also Zeroconf addresses, too (see RFC 3330 and RFC 3927), but those don't appear to be at issue here.
This right here is exactly how to attack his testimony.
:]
From this, you have that this testimony is not based on any sort of science, no one has any clue how reliable it is, and it (should) be totally inadmissible in court.
And if he tries to say "well, but how could we connect to someone who wasn't sharing a file?" or something like that, I'd go down the route of just how you identify who is behind any given IP.
I mean, if you traced the IP I'm on right now, I guarantee that you'd find someone else entirely
Yup, it's *really* easy to build an entire shadow-replica of your site on a separate set of servers and "accidentally" make sure it has only the higher prices. It's not like they were trying to bait & switch or anything.
:]
And it would be *totally* unreasonable to maintain only one website instead of two. Just like with database normalization, you want as many redundant copies of the data as possible, so that if you accidentally delete a few, you always have extra copies floating around. I mean, isn't that how everyone does their database replication? You just make extra tables in the database, like TABLE1, TABLE1_BACKUP, TABLE1_OLD, TABLE1_OLD2, and so on...
Where did I learn all this about databases, you ask? There's a great website with example code--it's called the Daily WTF
* Print out the online price and bring it in with you.
Ahh, but wouldn't they become open to the reverse-scam then? It's not like it's difficult to save the page to your hard drive and edit the price. With the duplicitous version of their website, they wouldn't even know, provided you brought in a copy of this story about their double-dealing ways...
Of course, I have to believe they'd catch you if you did that, even so.
I don't think the law in the US says they own winter or anything, but we do have a special super-trademark set for them by law (and international treaty?). I suppose they have a point in not wanting people mislead about who paid the IOC money, but such sponsorships certainly don't make me want to buy their crap.
Personally, I'm nothing but sick of the damn games. I honestly don't care, not even one tiny bit, about them.
You're right, the GNAA is somehow affiliated with them. And they do "YHTB" trollsubs (i.e. some other random video, usually when people expect a new episode, but one has not yet been produced). But the rest of the time, their subs are perfectly good *shrug*
:] If you like Naruto or Bleach, there's hardly any competition. Well, I guess there's one other group doing Naruto: Shippuuden now, but no one else was that I knew of during the years of filler.
So I wouldn't trust them (keep track of the release schedule, don't download the trollsubs, etc.), but I do watch them. Why? They have the sub out the night it's released, of course
> In the days when I used to watch them, it used to be excruciatingly poor, with cringeworthy translation errors, unreadably wooden dialog, and typos galore; most of the effort usually seemed to be put into dancing animated karaoke lyrics for the opening song, rather than actually translating the script well. I glimpse the odd screen capture on blogs and so forth from time to time, and it doesn't look like things have improved much.
:]
Depends on the series, really. Some of the older ones are just plain crap, yes. Others are quite good. Yeah, they're not always perfect (I've spotted more than a few typos, although this is far more prevalent in manga), but they're pretty good.
I don't know if they can always be blamed for the "wooden" dialog--usually, that's the problem of the anime itself, but the translations I see are at least in literate English and understandable. Some even have helpful cultural notes (the meaning of a raised pinky finger meaning that two people are going out, etc.). But I wouldn't hold them to too high a standard--sometimes they just have to make it understandable without giving you the lowdown on what "yoroshi[ku onegai [ita]shimasu]" (all those brackets indicate removable bits that go with varying politeness levels...) actually means. Yeah, at least one series did that, but the others threw in either some generic greeting or another random phrase appropriate to the situation.
Ironically, the worse (i.e. stupidly literal and actually wrong) translations are probably better if you want to learn Japanese. And I am, naturally, attempting to do so, but in the mean time, I'd much rather just watch the show. Besides, once you learn enough, you can figure out what's meant by all the random name suffixes (-san, -sama, -chan, -tan, -kun, or misc. titles like -taicho and -hime) and there's no good way to work such things into the dialog, anyhow. Unless you *like* oddities like "Kiba boy" or "Believe it!" for some reason...
Besides, if you understand enough Japanese, why not get the raw and ignore subtitles entirely?
You'd think that people here would know better than to ask such silly things by now, wouldn't you? Does it really take that much thinking to realize that you can't give someone access to data and not give them access at the same time?
Even if you had some special quantum device to allow people to watch something once, only to have its quantum state collapse (or whatever), you could still record the output. With a camcorder, if it came to that.
"Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet." - Bruce Schneier, cryptography expert
It's true, I don't care about copyright infringement. And I still don't. I am, however, disgusted by their hypocrisy in claiming that copyright infringement is wrong while engaging in it themselves. Just because I don't care about copyright infringement doesn't mean that I like hypocrisy. Nor does this stance make me a hypocrite--like I said, the copyright infringement is NOT what I blame them for.
If you're going to charge someone with hypocrisy, it helps to know what they actually believe. And lest you think that I make that mistake with the MPAA, well, there are plenty of writings on their website I can point you to that detail how evil they claim to think it is. Unless they're doing it, of course, in which case they apparently don't even owe the guy a couple hundred dollars or whatever the price of his software was. As if I could get off like that by claiming, "Oh! I was going to buy the DVD anyhow! I deleted it so you don't have to sue me." and get out of a lawsuit if they'd caught me infringing upon one of their copyrights.
And yet those few genes prevent me from being a rat. Don't misunderstand--I'm not saying that rats don't make clinical models, just that "tiny" differences really do make a huge difference. After all, we know how many things have been cured in rats that did no good whatsoever for humans.
Also, this was a strange line in the article... isn't this "suppressed" (in what way?) study the one they're touting?
> Seize their assets. That's why a business isn't as powerful as a government.
Oh, that can destroy a government, too. If I live long enough, with the US Federal Deficit as deep as it is and climbing like it is, I might even see it happen.
The only way to kill an evil company appears to be to bankrupt it.
What on earth does it take to revoke a corporate charter these days?
Saw him in a movie, of course! :]
The teacher claimed that they were sold with illegal copies of Windows on them. The reseller claims that they were sold with no OS.
:]
Of course, I have no way to know who is or isn't lying here--both certainly have motive--although I didn't think Microsoft *allowed* resellers to sell machines with no OS. It's been one of their anti-piracy [and anti-competition] clauses, given that they charged people per PC they shipped, whether it had Windows or not. They said that this would prevent them from getting shortchanged due to "blank" PCs that weren't.
Incidentally, the articles claimed that the prosecutors changed the charge midway through, instead dropping it down to the week the school allegedly used the PCs while knowing that the software on them was illegal. I think that makes it even more clear why a judge would drop the case--after all, in the US, we have a constitutional requirement of a $20 minimum loss before something can become a federal case (mind you, $20 was worth a *lot* more back when that was written--I don't think we ever adjusted it for inflation). There's also some minimum loss before the FBI will get involved, too. It's something on the order of $50,000 unless I misremember. That figure is probably wrong, but it's in the ballpark, and that's still the low end, so they're unlikely to pursue a $100,000 case when there are $10 million ones. And that also explains why the "losses" due to some of the more famous hacking crimes (e.g. Mitnick's exploits) were so inflated--you can't get the FBI's help if you only lost chump change
> I would not be surprised if MS has been leaning on the Russian authorities to ensure that the teacher got off - which would explain why the serious charges were dropped by the prosecution. They can not openly say they are in favour of piracy, but the last thing they want is people switching to Linux to save money.
I would be. It's far more easily explained by the fact that Putin and Gorbachev came out against it, while Bill & co. refused to (and also DID support their reseller who, according to said teacher, sold them the pirated software). In other words, there's absolutely no reason to suppose that they secretly support it, and if you want to finger someone as putting pressure on the judge, Putin and Gorbachev both have the clout to do it and they're publicly in favor of letting the guy off.
> King George swore up and down that Iraq had WMDs, did that make it so?
:P), and I've conversed with her in email, etc. I may not have met her in person, but I damn well recognize her. It's PJ. It has always been PJ. I don't know much else, but I damn well know that she exists and is just one person.
PJ has a lot more credibility than Bush. I don't think anyone who knows anything about both of them could deny that at this point. I can't name any politician, however popular, with as much credibility as PJ, frankly.
> If Stephen J. Vaughan-Nichols announces "aliens are real, I've seen them" tomorrow, is SETI going to shut down on Saturday?
PJ isn't an alien (last I knew). Also, this claim isn't even new. I can't remember the exact articles off the top of my head, but I know they've mentioned meeting long before this. I remember PJ's article about visiting a Linux expo (it's too late for me tonight) and how she described all the people there, the speeches, etc. As well as how she was too shy to introduce herself to much of anyone. Even if you're a really good writer, I don't think you could fake things like that. Her desire for privacy has been constant... and well-founded after the Maureen O'Gara article detailing how SCO was stalking PJ, and how her locks had allegedly been tampered with by someone, etc.
> If Bill Gates said he had met Pamela Jones, would the Slashdot community be so all-accepting?
Hell yes! Given that the information indicating that Microsoft helped convince SCO's investors to give them money, he'd be the last person to vouch for her. As such, it would be something like an "admission against interest" which, in a court of law, is one of the few hearsay exemptions. In other words, a very good reason to think that what was said was reliable.
> In fact, in my opinion, if she does exist but continues to not step forward, then she is even more childish than SCO is.
Don't be stupid. She's already said that she's sick. We already know that she's a very private individual (always has been). And if she's being subpoenaed, she probably can't discuss it with us. That sucks, but it's just the way things work. That may even be SCO's intent.
And what do you mean "does exist"? Clearly *someone* exists--those articles don't write themselves. If you've ever read Groklaw, you'd recognize her voice behind her words. I've made tons of comments, I've posted lots of stories from Groklaw over to here, many when I was too lazy to log in (like this one
Having played text based games for years, my "alt finding" ability is very high. I've identified many alts by their writing; everyone has a few little idiosyncrasies. PJ has plenty, like her particular sense of humor. Whoever PJ is, it's always been the same PJ and it's always been the same person. There's no doubt whatsoever in my mind, and I have several years worth of articles and comments to back that up.
So let's take the converse--just what makes you think she doesn't exist? Why would you rely on Darl's speculation, the fellow who told us how SCO would definitely win this, how they had mountains of evidence (Judge Kimball already called him on that once), and who is now leading SCO into bankruptcy (see their SEC filings for proof), over the word of PJ, a woman who publicly turned down a great job opportunity because it might undermine her credibility?